PeasyPDF is a little program for manipulating PDF files. Look for it in the menus under Document. The easiest way to use PeasyPDF is to run it in one window, with the folder containing your source documents in another. Then drag files between the windows.

PeasyPDF uses Ghostscript and works better with newer versions. Wary/Racy/Precise all have an obsolete version of Ghostscript, so some files are not handled properly. There is a Ghostscript upgrade for the above Puppies to v9.05 here. Click the small green DOWNLOAD box.

Code:

5e1193067e0165ed83707659eea6939b ghostscript_s533-9.05.pet

If you have problems, look in the log file /tmp/peasypdf.log for any error messages.

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The Convert tool converts JPEG, PNG and TIFF graphic files into PDFs. Use this if you have a single photo or scanned image that you need to package as a PDF. Other graphic formats can be converted by first opening them in mtPaint and saving as a PNG.

Text documents or spreadsheets can be converted to PDF by loading them into their default application and using Print > Print to File.

The Custom page size makes a PDF page with the exact dimensions of the graphic, so it is borderless. No other options are required with this setting.

PeasyPDF v3.7 has two new Custom sizes. If the original graphic has low resolution, the resulting PDF will be small and may require zooming in your PDF viewer. The Custom+ setting increases the initial size of the PDF. Similarly, the Custom- size shrinks a PDF made from a hi-res image that may overflow the screen.

The Landscape option turns the PDF page sideways so a landscape image will fit in its proper orientation. Use this in conjunction with a standard page size like Letter.

Use Turn if you want to fit a landscape image onto a Letter PDF page with regular portrait orientation.

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The Join tool combines separate PDFs into a single document or adds more items to an existing PDF.

1. Click New. This starts a new project in the folder /tmp/PDFJoin.

2. Select a PDF file and click Add. You can:

a. select it through the file chooser dialog.
b. drag a file directly from a ROX window into the file entry box.

3. Repeat Step 2 for all the source files.

4. When done adding files, click Join.

5. Click View to open the project folder in a separate ROX window. The joined file is named PROJECT.PDF. Copy it to a permanent location and rename it.

The project folder also contains the original files numbered sequentially. They will remain until you click New. So if you want to add another file to the project, just use Add and Join again. Or move to a different source folder and add more files from there.

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The JPEG section has two procedures for combining a batch of JPEG photos into a single PDF document.

1. Use the img2pdf tool. It is FAST, but requires Python. Download img2pdf here. Click the small green DOWNLOAD box. Tahrpup already has basic Python, otherwise get it here. Img2pdf is a one-step procedure. The JPEGs are directly combined into the file /root/JPEG2PDF.PDF. You may need to try different DPI values to get an acceptable PDF.

2. Use the tiff2pdf tool. It just needs some additional TIFF components from the package here. Tiff2pdf is a two-step procedure. The JPEGs are first converted to PDF format in /tmp/PDFJoin, then combined into the file /root/JPEG2PDF.PDF.

Hint: If you need to change the orientation of an image, like from landscape to portrait, rotate it in PeasyScale before converting to PDF.

Hint: You may want to make a PDF where the JPEGs are in a specific order. Get the latest version of PeasyDisc and use the Rename Files in Sequence tool. Then use the folder /tmp/RFIS as input to tiff2pdf.

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The Extract tool pulls one or more pages from a PDF file and converts them to JPG or PNG images. You can also save in PDF format. See below.

Update: PeasyPDF v2.3 can now extract the text from a PDF document. The text is saved in the temporary folder /tmp/PDFExtract under the name EXTRACTED.TXT.

Select the PDF file and enter the page number. You can also specify a list of numbers and/or page ranges, like:

Code:

1 4 9 16-25 36 49-64 81 100

You can also extract pages from a PDF without knowing the document length. For example, you can extract the entire document just by selecting pages "1-".

The extracted files are stored in the folder /tmp/PDFExtract. Click View to see it. Use the Clear button to erase the PDFExtract folder before starting another set of extractions.

If you extract to PDF format, you have two choices:

a. If you do NOT check Combine, the individual pages are extracted and stored in /tmp/PDFExtract.

b. The Combine option ONLY works with page ranges. The set of pages are extracted and made into a single PDF file named EXTRACTED.PDF.

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The Print tool sends a PDF (or selection of pages) directly to a CUPS printer. Use this instead of Puppy's default PDF viewer program, which does not always print correctly.

N-Up Printing lets you print several pages of the PDF document on each sheet of paper. N-Up only works with full documents - it cannot print a selection of pages. If you want to select pages, use the Extract tool and Quick PDF. Then print the EXTRACTED.PDF file using N-Up.

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PeasyPDF has optional support for MuPDF. MuPDF is a fast, accurate PDF viewer that may work better than your regular viewer. Download it here. Click the small green DOWNLOAD box.

Code:

13c578882380830de3035490891b1f7e mupdf-1.4.pet

MuPDF uses keyboard controls. There is a list of basic controls under the MuPDF tab.

If you like MuPDF, you can make it your default viewer. Right-click on a PDF file and choose Set Run Action. Change the command to

Code:

mupdf "$1"

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Update: For a simple PDF annotating tool, see the discussion about Xournal on page 5.

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Here are some examples:

You have a 10-page PDF file. You just want to delete the first page.

a. Choose Extract with the format PDF+Combine
b. Select the page range 2-.
c. Click View to see the new PDF.

You have a PDF file. You want to build a new PDF that combines some of the original pages with some of your own.

a. Choose Extract with the format PDF, but do NOT combine.
b. Extract the pages you want.
c. Click View to open the PDFExtract folder.
d. Click the main Join tab and start a new project.
e. Drag pages from the PDFExtract window into the project and add them. Insert your own pages as needed.
f. When done, join them.

You have a 200-page PDF and you want to insert another item after page 100.

a. Extract pages 1-100 using PDF+Combine.
b. Start a new Join project.
c. Add the EXTRACTED.PDF file.
d. Add the additional page.
e. Go back to Extract and click Clear.
f. Extract pages 101-200 using PDF+Combine.
g. Add the second EXTRACTED.PDF file to the project. (This is OK because the file gets a new name in the project.)
h. Join the three items.

OK, wasn't aware of the updated ghostscript even though the latest Slacko alpha ships with the Peasy* line of progs. Do you see this as a drop in replacement?

In Puppy, the primary role of Ghostscript is for printing - it converts Postscript data from an app into raster data for the printer driver. Since printing still works in Puppies that have the old GS 8.15, it appears to be good enough. In the places where printing is a problem, it's because of the old CUPS version.

However, most modern apps have switched from PS to PDF as the data format for printing work-flow. So it's not clear how well the old GS is coping.

In PeasyPDF, I found many cases where a newer GS was required to process PDF files. I did some print tests in Slacko with the new 8.64 and it looked OK. But it was a small sample. So I'm not going to swear that it's a drop-in replacement.

If people have issues then at least this package is available. I might upload to Slacko repo under a different name "gostscript_newer" with a modified description or something so it doesn't conflict with the original when building from woof.

Hi rcrns51 !
many ... hmm...let's say a TON of thanks for this peasypdf ... i'm using it now regularly ... it prevent me from sam2p's command line operation (which i also like) with substential time saving !
i also much appreciate the resolution size choice --> to save memory.
cheers, charlie

Thanks for a really useful application. May I make a feature suggestion? Not vital, but it could be useful.

Some scanners with autofeed are not sophisticated enough to handle backed documents. You end up with all the odd pages, then all the even ones. It would be good if there was a "merge like a zip" option for the combine process, to handle that situation.

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